Our world-renowned San Diego Zoo started with a roar — literally. On a warm September 16 in 1916, a century and a day ago, Dr. Harry Milton Wegeforth was driving back to his office with his brother after performing surgery. As they rode past Balboa Park, Dr. Harry heard a lion roaring, one of the […]
Teachers change lives one lesson at a time and one child at a time. What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased. With San Diego’s students back in school, I offer a gallery of life-changing teachers who exhibit a lot of class. Have you heard about the music teacher? He […]
With Labor Day coming up, I’ve decided to share with you my checkered workplace history: My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got couldn’t concentrate on the same old boring rind, so I got canned. Then I became a lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack it, so they gave me […]
Much in the news these days is the spirited debate about nativism vs. “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free — the advantages and threats of surging immigration around the world. I try never to use this space to take sides in political controversies. Today I’ll simply shed some […]
At the nearly completed Rio De Janeiro Olympic Games, Usain (pronounced Yoo-sane) Bolt, the jet-propelled Jamaican dash man, retained his title as the fastest man in the history of our planet. Note how the surname Bolt is so wonderfully spot on and target perfect for a human flash, the electrifying smasher of world records in […]
Starting with only a handful of animals in 1916, our world-famous San Diego Zoo is now home to more than 4,000 creatures representing 800 species. Each year 5 million visitors come to see the Noah’s ark of animals here. To mark the centennial of this jewel in the crown of our city, I offer several […]
Sometimes it seems that almost all Americans either play sports or watch them. Because competition occupies such a central place in American life and imagination, we hear a kind of democratic poetry in the sporty metaphors that make our English language so athletic. These phrases and expressions are vivid emblems of the games that we, […]
You know that a bunch of sheep crowded together is a flock, a group of antelope loping together is a herd, a cluster of fish swimming together is a school and a crowd of bees buzzing together is a swarm. But have you ever heard of a crash of rhinoceroses, a cowardice of curs, a […]
Mark Zeigler’s Aztecs basketball story in a late-March Union-Tribune was headlined SDSU TAKES CARE OF GEORGIA TECH, HEADS TO NIT SEMIS IN BIG APPLE. The first paragraph read, “There might be some bruises on the apple, but it’s an apple. A Big Apple,” which raises the question (not “begs the question”!) whence cometh the phrase […]
July is Gay Pride Month, and this morning in San Diego begins a parade celebrating our LGBT residents. This is a good time, then, to reflect on the origins and meanings of the word gay. As thousands of newly minted words have added to the currency of our language, the meanings of the words many […]